Background 

Dr. Dexin Shi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. He received his Ph.D. in quantitative psychology in 2016 at the University of Oklahoma and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of South Carolina. 

Research 

Dr. Shi’s research primarily focuses on developing, improving, and applying statistical methods (from both Frequentist and Bayesian perspectives) for modeling psychological data. His methodological interests reside in the following four areas: 1) Psychometrics, 2) Model fit and model selection, 3) Causal inference, and 4) Missing data analysis. He is also interested in the application of quantitative methods to substantive areas of psychology, especially in educational, clinical, and health-related studies. 

Dr. Shi has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, many of which have appeared in top-tier journals in his field, including Psychological Methods, Multivariate Behavioral Research, Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, and Educational and Psychological Measurement. In 2021, Dr. Shi received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science. He is also a recipient of the McCausland Faculty Fellowship (2021-2024) awarded by the College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina.   

Teaching 

Dr. Shi is also passionate about teaching quantitative methods courses to undergraduate and graduate students. He received the Innovative Pedagogy Grant from the University of South Carolina’s Center for Teaching Excellence and the SC Open Educational Resources Faculty Award from the University Libraries and Student Government.  

Courses Dr. Shi regularly taught include:  
PSYC 220: Psychological Statistics 
PSYC 815: Introduction to Causal Inference 
PSYC 824: Advanced Structural Equation Modeling  
PSYC 824: Special Topics in Quantitative Psychology